


Dalish at First Glance

by playwithdinos



Series: First Glance [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwithdinos/pseuds/playwithdinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thinks he is Dalish, in that first glance, in spite of his bare face. Most elves from the cities wear boots out in the wilderness—her father had, even after years of living with the clan. He wears robes that look cobbled together with wolf pelts and elven knitwork, a necklace with a wolf’s jawbone hanging from his neck. His shoulders heave with some effort she can’t identify, and as he watches her stand his eyes go to the places on her body where the honour for Mythal on her face is echoed—the branch crown on her cheekbones repeated along her collarbone, the sides of her arms.</p><p>What if the Dalish clan Solas met when he first woke was Lavellan?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Aevalle Lavellan and her scouting partner, Emren, emerge from the shelter of the ruins into the late afternoon sun and warm breeze of early summer. They are covered in layers of grime and spider intestines, and although he complains he holds a shining broadsword for their trouble. She has a delicate necklace made of ironbark entwined with silverite, some old enchantment on it making her fingers tingle as she holds it up to the light trickling through the trees.

“Shems’ll pay good coin for that,” Emren says to her.

She frowns at his words as they walk through the forest. She lags a few paces behind him, admiring the halla charm at the end of the necklace.

“Don’t pout, _lethallan_. It’s not much worth keeping if it can’t start fires or shoot rabbits. Besides, we have to make up for coming back to camp empty handed.”

“Sell your sword, then.”

He looks offended she would even suggest it. “And whose fault is it my last one broke?”

She allows a grin. “Not mine. You’re too slow.” She admires the necklace once more, then tucks it back into a cloth and into her pocket for safekeeping.

He shoves her playfully. “I’m not too slow, you’re a nimble little freak.”

They stop at a stream to strip their leathers and wash the worst of the spiders from themselves, which quickly devolves into shoving each other around in the water. Aevalle has superior mobility, but Emren’s stance is sturdy and his reach greater, and more often than not she is shrieking with laughter while he throws her into the water. She does manage to clamber up on his back and wrap her limbs about him, trying to throw off his balance. She succeeds with a whoop, but she falls with him into the water.

Breathless with laughter she crawls back to shore, leaving him sputtering in the stream’s depths. When she turns her gaze from him back to what’s in front of her, however, she sees a pair of feet, bound with their toes bared several paces away from the stream. She looks up, all the way up, and there is an elven man leaning on a staff, his expression blank as he stares at her face.

She thinks he is Dalish, in that first glance, in spite of his bare face. Most elves from the cities wear boots out in the wilderness—her father had, even after years of living with the clan. He wears robes that look cobbled together with wolf pelts and elven knitwork, a necklace with a wolf’s jawbone hanging from his neck. His shoulders heave with some effort she can’t identify, and as he watches her stand his eyes go to the places on her body where the honour for Mythal on her face is echoed—the branch crown on her cheekbones repeated along her collarbone, the sides of her arms.

She has never been embarrassed to be bare before anyone before, but she is glad to still be wearing her breastband and leggings under the scrutiny of his gaze.

“ _Aneth ara_ ,” she ventures, because he seems tired and lonely and in such pain as he stares at her. She hears Emren emerging from the water behind her to stand at her side, probably scowling.

“ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” Emren says, stiffly. His greeting is not only more formal, but his tone less inviting. “Are you lost?”

 “ _Se Dalish_?”

Emren glances at Aevalle. She gives a slight shrug.

“We are the true free elves,” he answers.

The strange man seems to be conflicted—many things pass over his face as he sighs, leaning more heavily on his staff. Aevalle takes a step forward, reflexively, but Emren holds her shoulder.

She shakes his grip off and approaches the stranger. “ _Na isala halani_? Are you hurt?”

“ _Ma serannas_ ,” he says to her. Then he speaks a whirlwind of elven to her that makes her eyebrows rise—she understands bits and pieces of it, enough to figure out what he is trying to say. _I am weak and weary from a long journey, from what is lost to me. Do not concern yourself, da’len._

“ _Ir abelas, hahren_ ,” she says. Her voice is breathy with a hint of amazement in it, and she chides herself for sounding like a child. “You speak elven better than any I’ve met.”

“Where did you come from?” Emren asks cautiously, standing beside Aevalle again.

“ _Lethallin_ ,” she scolds him. “Our clan is not far if you need to rest, _hahren_. We can take you there.”

The stranger glances down at her and a small smile spears at the corner of his mouth. “Before or after you are dressed, _da’len_?”

They clean their leathers as quickly as they can and then they walk through the forest with the stranger. He seems uneasy at first, and Emren’s glares discourage conversation, but Aevalle pulls the necklace from her pocket, on a whim.

Its glimmer catches his eye, as she had thought it would.

“ _Hahren,_ ” she says. “We found this today in a ruin. Do you know anything about it?”

He takes it from her and holds it up to the light as they walk.

“It is excellently crafted,” he says before he hands it back to her. “It seems to be a gift an elvhen woman would give to her daughter when she came of age.”

“Is it magic?”

He laughs, softly. “Few things were not in Arlathan. This one carries charms to prevent pregnancy, to ensure good health and pleasure in lovemaking… among other things.”

Her cheeks feel warm and she knows there is a flush on the tips of her dark ears.

“Is it not to your liking, _da’len_?”

“She was hoping it would be something more helpful,” Emren shoots over his shoulder at them.

“I like it very much!” she snaps. “And it is very helpful, not that you would know!”

He waves a hand at her. “We have herbs for that. Or were you looking to take someone off for a romp in the woods sometime soon?”

She is still young enough to rise to the bait. “I was not!”

“Was it my brother?” He sends a grin over his shoulder at her, and if they were not walking with this strange _hahren_ she knows she would pick up a rock and throw it at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him, it’ll just go to his head.”

“ _Lethallin_ ,” she hisses. She glances at the man beside her to see if he is offended—but he is smiling a little at the flush on her cheeks. She thinks some of the sadness she saw earlier is gone, and she smiles back.

That small smile of his disappears the moment he sees the statue of Fen’harel, facing away from their camp.

 --

The barefaced stranger leaves the camp as abruptly as he came not long after the shouting from the Keeper’s aravel dies down. He passes right by Aevalle as he goes—almost running right into her, his stormy eyes lingering on her vallaslin. His features contort into a snarl, of pain or disgust she can’t tell.

“ _Hahren_ ,” she tries to say, but he whirls past her, anger replacing earlier exhaustion.

He pauses only at the statue of Fen’harel outside their camp. The leaves in the trees above them shudder in the wind, casting light and shadow in a frenzy all around the Dread Wolf’s snarling visage. His grip on his staff tightens, the gem at the tip brightening just for a moment. Then his face twists up again and he storms off into the woods.

“Good riddance,” Veris says under his breath. Clan Lavellan’s First rolls his shoulders and turns his lips into a sneer at the stranger’s back. His _vallaslin_ for Andruil is white against his sandy skin and bronze freckles, and his ice blue eyes makes the lines of it seem harsh when they twist with his expression.

“But what he said,” Aevalle says softly, still watching where he had gone. Her hand is on the necklace, tucked away in her pocket. “What if he does have some knowledge we have lost?”

“Him?” Veris laughs. “Aevalle, trust me. The Dalish are the keepers of our history. What would some _seth’lin_ know that we do not?”

She tenses at his words, but Veris recoils from a smack to the back of his head before she can react. “ _Dirthara ma_ ,” Emren says to him, just coming into Aevalle’s line of sight from behind Veris. “ _Ir abelas_ , _lethallan_. My idiot brother is still too full of himself to learn manners, or basic elven decency.”

“That hurt,” Veris grumbles, rubbing the back of his head. “Do you always have to hit so hard?”

Emren smirks. “No,” he answers, winking at Aevalle. When she does not laugh, he frowns. “Veris, the Keeper wants you.”

“What for?”

“Probably because she’s forgotten how nauseating you are and needs to be reminded. Just go.”

Veris stalks off, and Emren crosses his arms, looking Aevalle up and down. His _vallaslin_ that marks his devotion to June twists when his lips do. He is trying not to smile and failing.

“No,” he says.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You don’t have to. How many ruins have you dragged me into? If the Keeper had thought his knowledge sound she would have sought his council.”

“Yes,” Aevalle mutters, tugging at her hair, “because she’s always right.”

Emren sighs. “You can’t go chasing some stranger just because you’re fighting with the Keeper.”

She scowls at him. He raises an eyebrow and does not budge.

“It’s just... he speaks elven better than the Keeper.”

“It’s a bad idea, _lethallan_.”

“He looks like he is hurt.”

“Probably for running his mouth.”

She sulks a bit, and then remembers something. She smirks.

He scowls at her expression. “What.”

“You know, I’ve gotten to know that handsome shem in the village nearby.”

There’s a light flush on his cheeks, and she knows she has him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” he rubs her knuckles against the place on her armour that covers the _vallaslin_ on her arm. “Because he thinks you have a nice ass.”

Emren’s spine straightens.

“He told you that?” His voice is almost a squeak.

“And what kind of feathers he likes to fletch his arrows with. He’s run out, by the way.”

He stares at her. She stretches her arms before her and waits, patiently.

He presses his hand to his forehead. “ _Fenedhis._ One day and I’m coming after you.”

She slaps Emren’s arm. “The red hawk,” she tells him with a grin as she walks past, going to an aravel to grab some supplies.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this ages ago in the Kink Meme, and I--have mixed feelings about this piece, but people have been so wonderful in commenting on Rebel Heart that I thought I should post something Solavellan while I work on Whetstone. I don't think this is as polished or well written as some of my other stuff, but it was fun to write at least so there's that?


	2. Chapter 2

He knows he is being followed, but by nightfall he is too exhausted to continue. Let them try to kill him for his blasphemy, he decides, throwing off the wolf pelt as he stands by the stream. He has followed it north, even in his rage knowing he does not have a plan worth following any longer. The orb is in his pack, and even with layers of animal hide and fabric between it and himself he can feel its whispering, taunting him.

So. The people have bothered to remember he locked the Gods away.  Looking up at the first stars to appear on the horizon, there is a shred of himself that does not blame them. He grits his teeth and buries it deep when he remembers that statue of the Dread Wolf. Ears back, teeth bared, hackles raised. To scare off demons—how juvenile.

He rips off robes and leaves them on the ground. He has a wound on his stomach he has badaged, lacking the strength to heal it. Part of him is mortified that he is still wounded, that his power has deteriorated so much that he might die of fever or infection of all things. He half-laughs at the thought of it, the sound hollow in his chest. A fitting end, for all he has wrought.

He wonders what has come of his pursuer—surely they have come upon him by now. He turns and there she is, that young Dalish girl from earlier. There is a pack slung over her shoulder, a small brace of rabbits in one hand and her mouth hangs slightly open as she watches him, her hand on a tree next to her as if steadying herself. Her skin is darker, richer than copper or bronze and her lips have the shine of it in the early moonlight, her hair long and such a dark brown it is almost black. She seems too young for the sharp line of her hooked nose, but he supposes in another year or so she will mature into it. He cannot make out her vallaslin in this light, but having seen it earlier it is burned into his memory, dark and blue and digging old wounds into his heart. She is armed, twin daggers on her back and a bow and quiver over her shoulder, but her hands do not reach for them as she looks him up and down.

Her green eyes are wandering, and he thinks maybe stripping was not such a good idea. Her gaze rests on the bandage wrapped round his stomach, and she slips the pack from her shoulder, her young lips forming a determined line.

“Why are you here?” he asks her.

“I thought you might be hurt, _hahren_.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Your mother will wonder where you have gone.”

“My mother is long dead,” she tells him as she digs around in her pack. He wonders if the way she clips the words as she speaks is because she is angry at her death, or annoyed that he thinks she is so young as to require supervision.

“ _Ir abelas, da’len_ ,” he says.

She makes the slightest noise, and he cannot tell what she means by it. She pulls bandage and a bottle of salve out of her bag, and she approaches him.

When she is standing close enough for him to reach out and take what she offers, she stops. She tilts his head slightly as she looks up at his face, her eyes trying to read his.

“I presume you will be in trouble with your... Keeper when she finds out you have been gone.”

She smirks. It brings a light to her eyes that is not unpleasant.

“My Keeper herself would tell you I make a daily effort to be in trouble with her,” she says. She gestures to his wound. “May I? I’m no healer but I have plenty of practice tying bandages.”

He hesitates. She waits.

After she builds a fire and has the rabbits skinned and roasting on sticks, they sit by the stream and she helps him unwind the bandage. He thinks she blushes when she accidentally touches his skin. At first he attributes it to her youth, but she had no such blush when wrestling with her friend that afternoon, only when he had teased her. He does not bring it up—as soon as she is content with his health she will return to her clan. Probably to brag of her bravery, following a crazed man into the woods.

“My name is Aevalle,” she says when she rinses his wound with water from the stream.

He stares at her again with a raised eyebrow.

She is clearly waiting for a response. Her fingers hover over the open jar. He can smell elfroot and dawn lotus wafting from it.

“Solas,” he tells her, because it is all he has left.

She smiles then. “Was that so hard, _hahren_?” she teases him. She smears the salve on his wound and it is cool on his burning flesh. He closes his eyes and a small, grateful hum escapes him as he rolls his head back.

When he opens his eyes again, she is staring at his neck. _Hahren_ , indeed. The skin under her _valaslin_ flushes deeply when she catches his eye, pulling her hand away.

When he was much younger, he would have taken her there, just for being brazen enough to show interest. As it stands, starved for a friendly face and the touch of another, he has to clench his hands in the grass on either side of him to stop himself. She calls him _hahren_ , he reminds himself. There is still a line there that shouldn’t be crossed.

“If you need to return to your people,” he tells her, “I believe I can manage from here.”

She pauses with her hands in the stream, his blood and the salve washing from her fingertips. She turns and watches while he focuses healing magic in his hands, just a little to help the salve along. Even that weakens him more than he cares to admit.

“You’ve come a long way to be turned back by my Keeper,” she says, softly. She takes the linen bandage and begins to wind it around his stomach.

“Did you follow me in order to convince me to go back?”

She pauses. “No,” she says, but she is a terrible liar and it makes him smile a little. “I... wanted to thank you, for telling me about the necklace.”

“It was a small thing. And yet you consider it worth following me and aiding me?”

She makes a face he cannot quite read in the moonlight. “It’s silly,” she says, “but it made the past seem... more real.”

“More real?”

“All we have are fragments of fragments,” she says, her deft fingers tying her bandage securely. “Even remembering _Halamshiral_ as it was is a struggle, when the shems are so quick to tell us how it fell, to remind us of our savagery and our weakness. Arlathan?” The hum in her throat is soft and warm in spite of its sadness. “We do what we can, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. There. That should hold.”

He inspects her work. “I find you to be a most diligent bandage tier,” he tells her. “ _Ma serannas._ ”

She leans back onto her palms in the grass. “You can keep the salve and bandage, I’ll say I lost it.”

He watches her for a time, the way the firelight flickers across her skin, illuminating her vallaslin. “I suppose it can be difficult to imagine the life of the _elvhen_ before our time.”

She laughs a little. “Living in trees? In what, aravels? Did they fly or were there ramps everywhere? That certainly seems less mystical.”

“Imagine instead spires of crystal twining through the branches, palaces floating among the clouds. Imagine beings who lived forever, for whom magic was as natural as breathing. That is what was lost.”

Her eyes light up and she leans forward. “You make it sound like you were there,” she breathes.

He chuckles. “In a sense,” he tells her, emboldened by her awe. “The dreams and hopes of the people who walk in a place are held by spirits when they press against the veil. If one knows how, they can seek out those memories in the Fade.”

“And you do.”

It is easy to wear a smile at her curiosity. At the way she shifts closer to him again, her eyes bright with wonder. In that moment he forgives her Keeper every insult thrown at him, her clan that awful statue, and he tells her of walking through the Fade, of the Emerald Knights who guarded the Dales, how the streets of ancient elven cities were lit by runes at night, the stones of their cities coming alive under the stars.

“Tell me,” he asks her at length. “Why do you wear the _vallaslin_?”

She looks at him curiously. “You say you dream of the ancient past but you ask me that now?”

“Humour me.”

“We receive them when we come of age. It is painful and we must endure it in silence and contemplation. They honour the Creators,” she says at length.

His eyes flicker across her cheekbones, where Mythal’s branching crown curves up into the sides of her head, hidden by her dark hair. “I see,” he says.

Her eyebrows rise. “You disagree.”

He lies back in the grass. “You should return to your clan, _da’len_. They most likely miss you by now.”

“My friend’s covering for me. What were the Keeper and you fighting about, exactly? Talking of crystal spires doesn’t seem particularly blasphemous.”

He closes his eyes. “It was my arrogance she disliked. Nothing more.”

She makes a small grunt of disbelief, but does not press the issue.

He thinks she must have fallen asleep, because she is silent for a long time. But she says rather suddenly, “There’s a ruin near here. I found the necklace there.”

It bothers him that the people are reduced to digging through ruins for memories of their own past.

“Maybe you could tell me more about it? Tomorrow?”

How long does she plan to follow him, he wonders. “It would be my pleasure,” he tells her.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“How old are you?” he asks her as they walk through the ruins.

“I’ve seen seventeen summers. What does this mean?”

“It’s an adulation to Andruil. This temple was dedicated to her.”

“Specifically?”

He sighs. “It begs for her mercy,” he says, his tone flat. “And for her protection. The rune has dual meanings.”

“Mercy and protection from what?”

“When did you receive your _vallalsin_?”

“Fifteen summers. You’re not very good at this question for a question thing.”

He exhales. “This is not a pleasant place, _da’len_.”

“Really? I thought the murals depicting gory death were about sunshine and roses.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. He must have gotten excessively turned around when he awoke from _uthenera_ —the geography has changed so much he did not recognise the place he and Aevalle stand in now until they were upon it, and it was too late to turn back.

“Is it common to receive _vallaslin_ that young?” he asks instead.

She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows at him.

He sighs. “In... my wanderings in the Fade, I have seen that Andruil was driven mad by her battles in the Void. This temple seems to date from the last years before the fall of Arlathan, when she would have been at her worst. The supplicants of this place were likely asking Andruil to protect them from herself.”

A frown passes over her features. She bites her lip and is still a long moment, but just as he opens his mouth to beg his leave of her she looks back up at him again. “I was very young, but I had completed all my training with the hunters and my Keeper said I was ready. Are you sure?”

He blinks. “About?”

“Andruil. You said last night that what you learned from battlefields was subjective to the perspectives of the dreamers.”

He feels anger rising in his gut, and he stomps it back down. “And yet you took my words of the crystal spires to heart without proof.”

She scratches the back of her neck. “Well,” she mutters. “I think that requires less...” Her eyes flicker back to his face. “... faith. What you say makes sense, Solas, even if it’s hard to take in,” she says, crossing her arms behind her back. “We have stories that the Dread Wolf locked the Creators and the Forgotten Ones away in the Void.”

He watches her expression carefully. She raises her eyebrows, expectantly.

“That is not a question.”

“Have your dreams told you of it?”

He smiles a little.

“I have dreamt of the fall of _Elvhenan_. The nobles who were overrun cursed the Dread Wolf as a betrayer, while the lower classes hailed him as God of Rebellion.”

“What about Tevinter?”

“I said nothing about Tevinter.”

She scowls. “That’s... our stories all say that the humans of the Tevinter Imperium conquered Arlathan when the Gods were sealed away, enslaving the elves that were left. Their whole empire is based on that story, the entirety of modern Thedas.”

“Little more than scavengers, who knew not what secrets they trampled,” he tells her sadly.

“Says your dreams.”

He bristles. “Says scribbles on walls in ancient tongues I have learned to translate through exploring the Fade, begging favours of spirits. Says the horrified final moments of countless of the people as Andruil hunted them in the forests, as Falon’Din encouraged bloody wars that encompassed eons and continents to suit his pride—”

 _“_ Solas,” she says. “ _Ir abelas._ I meant no disrespect.” She looks ill in the light of her torch, and he is not sure if he regrets what he has told her. Something on her neck glimmers as she shifts her weight, catching the light.

He exhales and closes his eyes, trying to control his temper.

“Is this what you and my Keeper fought over yesterday?”

His eyes snap up to the blue _vallalsin_ on her cheeks.

“You are overly concerned with a conversation you were not privy to.”

The sound of approaching footsteps begins to drift from behind them, and the voices of at least two men following—bickering with each other in heated whispers.

“It seems your clan has come to rescue you,” he says, unable to keep the spite form his voice. She does not respond so he spares a glance at Aevalle—she has pressed her palm against her face in embarrassment.

Two young Dalish men round the corner, one of them with the sword from yesterday and a younger one bearing a staff and Andruil’s _vallaslin_. Solas thinks they must be brothers, they look similar enough.

“Aevalle,” the younger says, furious. “Where have you been? The Keeper’s worried sick.”

“So much for covering for me, Emren,” Aevalle shoots at the taller one.

Emren only responds with an extremely put-upon sigh.

“You’ve got to stop running off for weeks on end every time you two have a spat,” the younger continues, storming up to Aevalle and planting his hands on his hips. He seems to be attempting to intimidate her by standing very close and leaning in with his superior height, but Aevalle does not budge. He has to lean back to avoid singeing his hair on the torch she holds. “It sets a bad example for the others.”

“I didn’t ask for your advice, Veris,” she tells him. “And I don’t want you following me.”

There is an undercurrent in her tone that makes Solas raise an eyebrow. Was this the brother Emren had teased her about the previous day?

“You’re being ridiculous,” he snaps back. In the light of the torch Solas can make out the young elf’s face flushing. “I come here as our Keeper’s First to bring you home, Hunter Aevalle.”

Her spine straightens. She speaks with all the command Veris has tried to impress into his tone and failed. Her eyes are bright and her mouth set in a thin line, and she looks three years older than she is as she tells him, “You do not have any authority to order me around, First or no.”

Veris does not have the experience to understand that he is outplayed here. He blushes deeper and scowls down at Aevalle—noticing something on her neck.

“What’s that?” he asks.

Aevalle’s hand goes to her neck, and Emren leans over his brother’s shoulder to take a look.

“I found it,” she says.

“You’re wearing it now?” Emren wonders. He glances up at Solas, standing further down the hallway.

“I didn’t want to lose it,” she snaps, dropping her hand. Her commanding tone is diminished considerably. “You may both tell _hahren_ that I am perfectly fine and I will return when I please.”

She whirls on her heel and storms past Solas, deeper into the temple. He spares a glance at the Dalish men left in the hallway—Emren looking amused, Veris furious. But he notes that they do not follow as he turns on his heel and walks after Aevalle.

He uses his magic to move aside fallen rubble and they step into what used to be the Temple’s main courtyard. There is no ceiling here, and they blink to adjust to the sunlight filtering through the trees that grow wild there now. The floor has long been overtaken by soft lichen, and he watches Aevalle walk on it with certain steps, sinking to her ankles. She turns to look at him with brightness in her eyes, but her expression falls when she sees him.

“You look sad.”

He leans on his staff, the magic use exhausting him more than he cares to admit. He is used to pulling magic from the air whenever he pleases, or having vast quantities he can call upon. All locked away in his foci now, untouchable, and this world he has awoken to is nearly drained dry of magic, the air itself gasping for life around him.

He gestures to the largest of the trees. “Once, you would have walked on a floor carved from the most precious of marble. Guests to this temple would have followed the swirling patterns in the stone their heads bowed in prayer, following its winding path through this place. The most skilled of artisans laboured for years to work the glass that encased that tree, and now its roots have rendered it to sand, long blown away by the wind. Canopies of the finest silks would have kept the sun’s glare from our faces, held aloft only by magic, with only half a thought keeping it from falling.”

He stops when he looks at her again, her hands folded behind her back, her head tilted as she watches him. Her hair is catching the sunlight, some of it blown over her shoulder by the gentle breeze. It makes a line to the necklace she showed him, glittering prettily in the light.

Her skin is dark with life and her eyes filled with wonder while she listens. The way she has her head tilted is exposing her neck, just enough to make his eyes linger there. Seventeen summers, he has to remind himself. Barely an infant compared to him—but she is alive and she is not frightened of him, and that is wearing on his resolve.

“Why do you follow me?” he asks her.

“Where are you going?” she counters.

He tears his gaze from hers, scowling. He stalks past her to stand before the statue of Andruil. Once golden as her armour, it is covered in filth and grime, a bird’s nest in the crown of her hair and vines trailing up her legs.

Aevalle comes to stand beside him, not saying anything.

“ _Ma serannas_ ,” he says. “You have been more than accommodating of my rambling. It might be wise for you to return to your friends.”

She shakes her hair out. “And leave you wounded and defenceless? Solas _,_ you think so little of me.”

“I am hardly without means of defence.”

She laughs a little—and he has to force his features into a scowl to hide that he glances at her neck when her head rolls back. He keeps scowling as he turns to walk around the statue, to continue into the temple.

In his embarrassment, he does not notice that his foot is sinking deeper into the lichen than it should, that the ground underneath is softer than elsewhere. The earth shifts and falls apart underneath his weight, and before he can even yell he is falling.

She grabs his arm before he can plummet and she hits the ground and there is a moment where he swings and she holds his weight—and she laughs again, just before the earth she lies on begins to crumble.

As they fall, he pulls her into her arms and his barrier snaps into place around them both. After a long, breathless moment, it crackles and bursts when it touches the ground, and Solas hits the ground back-first, the shock of the impact knocking Aevalle from his grasp.


	4. Chapter 4

The loss of his barrier must have drained him considerably, because the world spins when he opens his eyes. He closes them again with a groan, his hand moving to touch his forehead. He feels his own skin as if through a fog, and he considers for a moment allowing himself to be lulled into _uthenera_ until he recovers.

Then he hears movement far above them, and panicked yelling.

“Aevalle!”

“ _Lethallan_ , are you down there?”

He manages to pull himself up onto his elbows and look around. Above them he can make out the silhouettes of the young Dalish men—too far up to climb, he thinks.

“If you’ve killed her, flat ear, you’ll regret it!” the younger yells down. Then he curses as the other smacks him on the back of his head.

“ _Fenedhis_ ,” Solas hears from his left. He glances around until he sees the green circles of her pupils catching the light that spills in through the hole. He climbs to his feet and stumbles over to her—she’s on her side, her left leg twisted under her at an impossible angle.

“I think it’s broken,” she says, grinning through her grimace.

“What’s broken?” comes the frantic question from above.

Solas helps her into a seated position, and although she bites her lip she gives a small moan of pain. “It’s just my leg, Veris, calm down.”

He helps her lean against the pillar and goes to examine her leg. “It is not too severe,” he tells her. “But I will need to set it.”

“This may be my first embarrassing tumble into the basement of a temple,” she tells him with a smirk, “but it’s not my first—fuck that hurts.”

“Don’t touch her! Aevalle, I’m coming down!”

“Don’t you dare,” she snaps up at them. A glance backwards tells Solas that Veris has one leg dangling in the hole, frozen in place at Aevalle’s command.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he yells back, after the slightest hesitation. “I am First to our Keeper and you are injured—”

“You won’t _be_ First if you snap your neck on the way down here. I am not alone. We will find another way out.”

Veris tries to protest, but Solas watches Emren lean over and pull his brother away from the hole by the back of his clothing. “We’ll go find some rope,” he yells down. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

There’s a brief scuffle above them, some soft arguing, and then a handful of sticks are thrown down from above. “I’ll assume you know how to make a splint, in your vast wisdom.”

Solas leaves Aevalle long enough to gather the sticks. “How thoughtful of you, _da’len_ ,” he says.

His only answer is exasperated grumbling.

She was not joking; breaking a limb seems to be a thing she has experienced before. He unties the soft leather wrapping on that leg slowly, in an attempt to spare her as much pain as he can, but she doesn’t even give a moan of complaint. She braces herself and bites into the leather strap of her quiver when Solas sets the bone. He calls upon what mana he has, even though he feels drained, and runs his glowing hands up and down her calf to start the healing process. His eyes flicker up only once to hers, and she watches him work intently, beads of sweat on her brow. Jaw clenched, expression focused.

“I suppose it should be endearing how your lover cares for you,” he says. “I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps he is not so insufferable all the time.”

She is still young enough to blush at the word _lover_. “My—who?”

 Oh—he had misread the situation. It almost brings a wicked smile to his face; if he was his younger self, it certainly would have. “The First. You and he...?”

She rolls her eyes and leans back into the pillar. “That—ugh.”

“You do not care for him.” He reuses her footwrap to fashion the splint, as it is a better hold than anything else they have.

She rubs her eyes. “Let’s talk about literally anything but that.”

“I believe you owe me at least one answer.”

She glares at him from under her hand. He smiles at her, looking positively lupine.

“We’re friends. After he received his _vallaslin_ last week, he decided we should be... more than that. We fought... publically about it, and we both said some things we regret. The other hunters weren’t impressed, so he woke up four days ago naked as the day he was born and tied to the statue of Fen’harel for the entire clan to see.”

Solas surprises himself by actually laughing a little.

“I know, right? I still don’t know how they did it. Anyway the Keeper tried to give me a lecture on propriety and my influence over the other hunters and like it always does it turned into a huge fight and I’ve been avoiding camp ever since.”

“Why to the statue of Fen’harel and not just a tree?”

“Well... he doesn’t suffer fools, right? All our stories tell us he values cleverness, and he plays tricks to keep us on our toes when he isn’t trying to steal us away. I don’t know if other clans do it, but our hunters joke about it a lot. Never seen someone actually do it.”

He ties the leather firmly on her leg. “Is that too tight?”

“No,” she says. “ _Ma serannas_.”

“Save your thanks for when your friends return with the rope,” he tells her. He stands and calls veilfire to his hand, raising it high to see into the corners of the chamber they’ve come to rest in.

“Any interesting revelations about what this room was for?”

He half laughs. “I thought you would have tired of them by now.”

“Let me guess—gory sacrifice?”

“Actually, orgies, followed by the ritual making of flower crowns.”

She sits in stunned silence until he looks down at her and smirks. Then she laughs.

“I knew it, you’re secretly funny.” She sticks her arms out towards him. “Help me up.”

“Your leg is broken. You should stay still until your friends return.”

“You’re worse than my Keeper!”

He only chuckles at her and shakes his head. She relents and drops her arms, smiling.

“Where will you go after this?” she asks.

He turns and looks at her, brow raised.

“Well, I can’t exactly follow you like this,” she tells him, gesturing to her leg. “And I’m curious. Are you going to find more Dalish clans?”

His lips twist into a frown. “No,” he says.

“Have you spoken to others?”

“No.”

She leans forward. “So you’re just going to give up?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but they are interrupted by a shrill shriek from deeper in the temple’s basement.

“Help me up,” she says with urgency this time, and he pulls her to her feet, throwing her arm over his shoulder and supporting her weak side.

The shriek comes again, and they begin to hobble away from it—for a horrifying heartbeat he thinks he will have to completely carry her, but she adjusts quickly to his stride and they’re moving at a pace not unlike running. They head for the closest archway, plunge down a hallway and keep moving, the light of Solas’ veilfire casting green light on the dark stone just before them.

It isn’t long before they reach a dead end, the screaming of whatever demon pursues them too close for them to turn back. Solas calls spirit energy to his fingers, and a shifting green barrier forms in the air behind them, sealing them off from their pursuer. He helps Aevalle to a seat on the rubble where the hallway has collapsed, and she gives only the slightest hiss of pain. She pulls an arrow from her quiver and her bow from her shoulder, jaw set in a tight line.

There is no time to say anything—Solas feels it behind him, ramming against his barrier with the crackle and spit of lightning. Already it is weakening. Her bow is raised and arrow notched and drawn, and Solas turns, gripping his staff in his hand.

“ _Era’harel_ ,” he whispers.

Its features speak of once being elven, and even those are twisted almost beyond recognition. Robes as ancient as Solas’ vast memory dangle from its body, its limbs stretched long with decay and the constant reach for the heartbeat of the living. It has no use for eyes, and they are hidden beneath a helm caked with blood gone dry as the dust on the stone around them. One ear remains, long, pointed, the last delicate thing on its twisted body.

It raises one of those grotesque arms, and with a final blast of lightning the barrier shatters. Solas throws another one around himself and Aevalle. Arrows fly from over his shoulder as he calls frost to his fingers—a wall of ice flares up between them and the Arcane Horror, a burst of it pouring from his staff to delay the monster’s advance.

 But he is weak from slumber, the casting difficult in this world so vastly different than he is used to. The horror breaks through the ice with sweep of its great arm, and before Solas can move it’s upon him, its gnarled hand wrapping around his throat.

“Solas!” Aevalle screams.

Solas’ back is slammed against the wall. He reaches out blindly, pulling at whatever magic will come to him—the veil ripples when he calls, he grabs at it so fiercely, but the grip on his neck tightens the harder he pushes with his mana. He drops his staff and tries, feebly, to pry its fingers apart.

He almost blacks out when the hand releases, the creature shrieking in rage and pain.

Solas crumples to the floor and looks up, bleary-eyed. Aevalle has thrown herself on the monster’s back, a dagger thrust in its face, and she holds on for dear life as she removes the dagger and thrusts it back in again and again.

He sees the arcane horror moving to slam her against the wall, and he throws out his hand, ice forming about the monster’s robes and keeping it in place. It thrashes wildly, and the ice breaks and they fall forward—the arcane horror’s body falls to dust and Aevalle hits the floor and rolls onto her back.

“Aevalle,” he chokes out, climbing to his feet.

She starts laughing.

“Are you alright?” he manages to choke out in between frantic breaths, his body still desperate for air.

“Fuck,” she says, still shaking with manic laughter. She manages to pull herself into a sitting position, leaning against the wall while he summons veilfire to his hand. “Did you see that? Hah. Jumped on his... I feel dizzy.”

He checks her over for further injury—miraculously, the splint has held. She has scratches on her arms and her face, but otherwise seems whole. He scowls at her regardless.

“That was reckless and ill-considered,” he scolds her.

She’s shaking, but she’s grinning. “Was it? Hadn’t noticed.”

Her chest is heaving, and he catches the glint of that necklace on her neck in the veilfire. Silverite for delicacy, ironbark for strength. The enchantments cast eons ago are still humming with life, and as depleted as his mana is they feel like a beacon, pulling at the scraps of his resolve.

“You know what else is reckless and ill-considered?” she breathes.

He looks up. She grabs the front of his tunic and pulls him into a kiss.

Some small part of him thinks _seventeen summers_ , but she smells of sweat, of the freshness of a forest stream and the sweet smell of tree sap and crushed leaves, the musk of animal fur and the softness of leather, and she tastes like the thrill of stalking the woods, sweat and sunshine, and above all she tastes like life, so he kisses her back, harder. She moans under him and his hand goes to cup her jaw, his wrist touching the flicker of the pulse against her neck. Alive. Free. Marked.

He pulls back from her, closing his eyes. She makes a small noise of disappointment, her hands clenching tighter on his clothes.

“You don’t know who I am,” he tells her. “Or just how much trouble that is.”

She smirks. “I like trouble.”

They hear footsteps approaching, and familiar voices yelling her name.

“Of course they’re back,” she grumbles. “Help me up.”

Her friends find her with her arm slung over Solas once again, him supporting her bad side as they walk.

“Why did you move her?” Veris snaps, looking between them suspiciously.

“We were chasing a butterfly,” she teases as he bends to examine her leg. “Not yet, let’s get out of here first. Apparently there’s worse things here than spiders.”

Emren takes her from Solas, lifting her up in his arms without any thought to her protesting. The rope they used to get down is thick and sturdy, and after Emren climbs up on his own he pulls Aevalle up as she clings to the rope, looking embarrassed.

Solas stays long enough to seal the entrance the arcane horror came from, then climbs up of his own volition. When he pulls himself over the top, Aevalle is seated on the ground and she bickers with Veris as he heals her leg.

“Why don’t you shut up and pay attention to what you’re doing for a change? You’re ridiculous when you get like this.”

“This is all because you had to follow some self-important _seth’lin_ —”

Emren smacks him on the back of the head.

“What was that for?”

“What do you think it was for? We tied you to a statue of Fen’harel naked and you ask me that? _Fenedhis,_ you are dense.”

Veris blushes furiously at his brother’s words. “We? You told me you—”

“Solas,” Aevalle says, seeing him finally.

“What happened to _hahren_?” Emren asks, a sly smile on his face.

“Piss off,” she snaps. Her subtle blush is beautiful in the sunlight, he thinks. “Both of you, go be anywhere but here, I need to talk to Solas.”

Emren drags his brother out by the ear, and Solas sits a respectful distance away from Aevalle.

She bites her lip and looks like she wants to say something—then she smiles.

He raises an eyebrow.

“Something tells me there’s nothing I can say that would convince you to stay,” she says.

He allows a small smile. “No,” he says, softly. “I think your Keeper made it very clear she would never like to see me again.”

“And you can’t, even if she didn’t.”

His smile falters. “It would not be wise.”

She touches the spot where he’d held her face. He pretends not to notice.

“If you haven’t decided to give up on the Dalish,” she tells him, dropping her hand, “there’s going to be an _Arlathvhen_ in a couple years. A gathering of clans. I’m going to be there, provided my Keeper doesn’t kill me for this little stunt.”

He watches her face for a moment. The flicker of her eyelashes as she glances up at him. If she has to bear any slave marks, he thinks, at least they are Mythal’s.

“I will consider it,” he says.

She smiles.

“ _Dareth shiral_ , Solas,” she says.

“ _Dareth shiral_ , _lethallan.”_


	5. Epilogue

“You asked to see her belongings,” Cassandra says to him.

Solas tears his gaze from the young Dalish woman chained to the ground. “I did,” he says, reminding himself.

“She did not have much on her,” the woman continues, either not noticing his lapse in attention or failing to bring it up. “Just this. I have had it confirmed that it is magical, but we do not know what the enchantments are for.”

He holds out his hand, and Cassandra presses a delicate necklace in his hand. Solas hesitates, but he holds it up to the torchlight.

“Ironbark and silverite,” he says. “A halla pendant.” He allows himself a small smile.

“Is something amusing?”

“No. It an artifact of the ancient _elvhen_. She likely found it in a ruin—the enchantments are of a mundane nature, I assure you.”

Cassandra raises one eyebrow and crosses her arms. “Such as?”

“Preventing pregnancy,” he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I should like to examine it—it may provide us with some information about the prisoner.”

She scoffs. “Keep it if you like. She may not survive to tell us more of it, regardless.”

Cassandra leaves and he kneels beside the woman on the floor. She has seen more summers, now—he tries to remember precisely how many. She has grown into her nose, as he guessed she would. Even in sleep, her features twisted in pain, her profile is strong. He almost believes she will survive this. Almost.

The mark on her hand sparks and she stirs in her sleep. Solas holds his breath—he remembers the broken leg, the determined twist of her mouth. Half expects her to wake and smirk at him— _fancy meeting you here_.

She stills again. The necklace in his hand is warm with ancient magic, still in her possession after all this time, and he feels something not unlike hope in his chest again.


End file.
